Done on time isn't always meaningfully done

​I told one of my sons the other day, don't perfect procrastination, because once you do, it's a skill you'll fall back on all your life.

Does that sound like a voice of experience?

It should, because it absolutely is.

All my life I have thrived under the pressure of a deadline. That can be a good thing, until you come to NEED a deadline to thrive.

Ryan Holiday talks about a sense of urgency at the other end of the clock. Holiday says, "We don’t control the clock, but we control when it begins ticking on our projects and pursuits. Every moment of hesitation delays the outcome and diminishes the potential for success."

The key word there for me is success.

Often, when driven by a deadline, just completing the project or turning the assignment in on time feels like success. Not nearly as much importance is given to quality in a deadline mentality as there is given to just getting it done.

Thriving at completing work is not always the same as thriving at producing meaningful work.

Writing has taught me a lot about shifting the point of urgency. I've always been capable of putting something good together as the clock expires to meet a deadline. But these days, I wake up with a sense of urgency to begin writing so I have ample time to create something I hope will be more meaningful than good.

I look back on my life and I'm afraid my gift of procrastination has probably been more curse than gift. I wonder how many things I never started because I thought there was plenty of time to get that done?

I wonder if some gifted procrastinators - like me - become so dependent on deadlines that they begin imagining deadlines somewhere way out there that ultimately stand in their way of getting started on something in the here and now.

Something that might have made a difference in someone's life.

Oh, I still need deadlines.

But today, I try to use them for things that HAVE to get done, like work assignments at the bottom of my to-do list that would likely never make it off the list without the pressure of a deadline.

For things I want to get done, though, for things I dream about and imagine leaving to the world as part of a legacy, for those things I try to focus more on starting the clock and not waiting for it to expire.

Whether it's with my parenting or writing or teaching or sharing my faith, I'm trying to feel more pressure to get started on something meaningful than waiting around for pressure to arrive that implores me to just get it done.

How about you?

Do you wait for the ticking of an expiring clock, or are you reaching to hit the button that gets that clock ticking?

If you're waiting to start the clock on something meaningful, a hope or a dream or a project that might change or shape someone else's life, maybe today is the day.

Maybe today is the day to start the clock.